


the ghosts of wolves and passerines (crying down the valley)

by jencat



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: An actual good reason why Frank didn't show up, Angst, F/M, Post DDS3, Slow Burn, That's it, and there's a cute sleepy pitbull, because dds3 was just all trauma all the time and I'm still mad about it, i hate writing tags???, karen and frank sitting on a porch drinking beer and talking, karen dealing with her trauma, karen page deserves a break ffs, mention of david lieberman, seriously this was therapy after dds3, that's the fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 00:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17456819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat/pseuds/jencat
Summary: Karen pulls off the highway mid-afternoon, winding through the series of roads that get smaller and steeper and less maintained, until the sun is streaking gold across the dusty windshield, and the GPS signal stutters off her phone for a moment every time she rounds a curve.It's not easy to get to. That's kind of the point.**Karen keeps an appointment





	the ghosts of wolves and passerines (crying down the valley)

_**"The wolf runs.** _

_**It runs three legged, like all damaged creatures, across the snow.** _

_**She thinks: this is true.** _

_**She thinks: this is a life.** _

_**She thinks: I do not want to die, but my life will always be like this—wounded and animal, lurching against white.”** _

_Lidia Yuknavitch, The Small Backs of Children_

 

Karen pulls off the highway mid-afternoon, winding through the series of roads that get smaller and steeper and less maintained, until the sun is streaking gold across the dusty windshield, and the GPS signal stutters off her phone for a moment every time she rounds a curve.

It's not easy to get to. That's kind of the point.

It's not easy to get to, but it's not untrackable. There are points of connection that would lead here, if you know where to look, and she knows she's not skilled enough to hide them completely.

And asking someone who _is_ skilled enough to help hide it... well, that creates another trace again.

So she keeps to a plan she made months ago, before her life imploded, exploded, turned to ash and shards of glass and somehow, somehow she is still here, still breathing through all that scorched air. Still driving up this mountain road like she planned way back when.

She always finds it so remarkable, how you can drive three, four hours out of the city and up the coast, and lose everything - decent road surface; reliable cell signal. She hasn't been back on side-roads like these for the longest time; hasn't pushed the sedan's suspension over gravel and broken asphalt since she's owned it

She's starting to wonder how long she'll get to keep it now; whether she'll be able to hang on to the apartment this time-- to the apartment _with her bookshelves--_ and the grief and the panic threaten to surface again for a moment.

But she looks back at the road, at the trees catching the late winter light all around her, and tries to remember that a good portion of her worst fears have already been dragged out into the light now, and she's still here. That she's confessed her worse secrets - hidden in the dark, trying to save the Devil himself; in the stark glare of a white room on camera, running on sheer incandescent rage - and she's still standing.

And --for the moment-- she's not alone in it anymore.

It's hard-earned in the worst way, but it's hers, now.

She almost misses the last turn; she knows what she's looking for but the light is lower and blinding gold when she turns the corner. Another road, almost a track; an hour past where the cell signal falls away entirely, and she leaves the steep edge to trail back to a flatter track, hidden amongst the trees.

She pulls up when she rounds the final corner; next to a battered truck: finally sees the cabin. It's a hell of a lot more than she expected for such a remote location; but then, David had promised it had been appropriated from someone with far too much money and just enough paranoia to be comfortable, and it certainly fit that, she supposed.

It's still fairly new she thinks; when she steps out of the car, stretching the drive out of her joints, she can see the unseasoned wood warm and glowing in the late winter sun--

And Frank Castle is sitting on the porch steps, a battered book splayed halfway under the flat of his hand; two bottles of good beer and a dozing gray pitbull arrayed round him.

Watching her like the world hasn't just ended, and she smiles.

It's a real smile for once; not solely intended to reassure the world she's okay; not there to keep the mask in place. It's the kind of smile she usually only makes these days when she forgets, for a moment. She's not forgetting right now though; not been drinking or distracted, and she smiles anyway; even though; _because_.

The late afternoon sun is just warm enough against the chill in the air as she walks up to join them. Not in any rush now, because she's made it here, and patience is something she's been working on.

Patience, and perspective, and she takes the beer he holds out; settles down on the steps next to him.

The pittie stretches in his sleep, claws scraping across the porch boards. She reaches out a hand to rest on the dog's warm, soft belly as it breathes.

He says, "Wasn't entirely sure you were gonna make it, for a while there."

She closes her eyes for a moment, says, "Yeah. Yeah you were." Lets herself lean, even so slightly, into the warmth of him at her side and tips the beer bottle over close enough to _clink;_ feels him sigh. It's a small enough kind of a toast, to making it this far. "Thank you, by the way."

She can hear him work at keeping his voice level; hold onto the calm that seems to settle over this place. "Can't thank me for doin' nothing, Karen. That's not how it works."

She looks sidelong at him; back out over the treeline, and the view over to the lake far below. Aware right down to her bones how much doing this must have cost him; that it floors her, staggers her, that he managed it.

"It's not nothing, Frank, keeping your word." Her voice feels scraped raw. She doesn't feel like she's used it for a lot of worthy things, lately. "Not for something like this. So... yeah. Thank you."

It's been a long, tiring day's drive to get up here, and she thinks there's enough of a chill to warrant the shiver that runs through her; the long, shaky breath that threatens to catch in her throat. She smooths her hand across the dog's belly, feeling the warmth seep up through her palm; feels it settle in from where she's leaning into Frank's shoulder, far more than she intended, and she's not crying; she's not going to cry up here, with the light shading everything clear and golden.

He's leaning back against her shoulder, she thinks; a counterpoint of gentle pressure--

She takes a deep breath, and then a long drink of beer, and she'd forgotten how the air up here makes everything taste better; sharper. From the corner of her eye, she can see his hand, tense and pale; wrapped a little too tight around the glass bottle, and there's something fragile and terrible about it.

Another sigh, shifting through him. "And if something'd happened to you?"

She hears the unspoken weight behind it; that actions have consequences, and it's never just yourself you're throwing to the wolves when you decide to make that play.

It's just-- he's not the only one with that godforsaken sense of responsibility dragging around behind him. She closes her eyes.

"I didn't want you anywhere near this one, Frank. _Nobody_ did. And I fucked up entirely in other ways, but I kept you out of it, and that was one thing I did do right."

She tilts her head a little; finally looks at him.

"You done?" He asks, gently; sets down the beer next to him with what seems an inordinate amount of care. She realizes probably he's avoiding anywhere in reach of the dog accidentally kicking it, and her heart constricts at something as small as that; as careful. Somewhere there's a list of _things worth saving_ , and that's on it.

"Yeah," she says; feels it rasp in her throat. "That's about it."

"Okay then. You staying now?" He's being calm, and reasonable, and she's still all burned out enough she doesn't know how not to argue it right now. She tries to remember to keep breathing.

"Just 'til tomorrow, if that's okay?" She thinks of the message David sent her, indirectly and eventually, about getting out of the city for a while, now it was _all over_. And it wasn't _over,_ not by a long way, but she's here, anyway. "Hell of a long way back down in the dark."

"Uh-huh. We're good. Managed to get groceries day before yesterday when the road cleared, so-- there's things for dinner, when you're hungry."

She's hungry now, truth be told, but she's also damned if she's moving from this porch just yet. She wonders when he got to check the news; when he he got a cell signal back, after all that. "There's, um-- there's a cooler, in the trunk, with steaks and things? Figured it wasn't that polite to show up empty handed." She gestures in the direction of the car. "Would you believe it, we're working from the back room at a butcher shop right now."

There's a muscle working in his jaw, but he just nods. "Perk of the job, huh?"

"Something like that. You get snowed in?"

To his credit, he doesn't say _that was kind of the point._ She knows it was the point; that there are still ten foot snowdrifts just down the road if you go looking for them, and they'll hang around until June given the elevation and some shade. This isn't a road that goes anywhere after they close this part of the mountain to traffic for the winter, and the fact the route most of the way up here had been ploughed at all by now was sheer luck on the part of the overstretched local highway department.

None of that would have even remotely have stopped him leaving, if he'd chosen to. They all know that; everyone who had a hand in setting this up. The isolation is more symbolic, a gesture on David's part she thinks, at how far anyone would look to find him in those few weeks, and how much collateral damage. An ask, and a reminder.

He says, carefully, "Had enough gas for the genny; enough coffee, and food for _him._ " Reaches over to scritch the dog with one hand, and she hears the sleepy _thump-thump_ of a tail against the porch boards.

"You been okay, Frank?" She's looking out over the lake rather than at him, and if her voice breaks somewhere in the last couple of words, it's entirely beside the point.

She hears him take a breath before he answers; through the kind of measured calm you can settle into, given enough practice, and she wonders how that happened. How he stepped out of that particular bear trap; that right now he's somehow stopped letting his pain drive him frantic right now. Wonders why she still can't ever seem to let herself get away from it.

He reaches for the beer, carefully; watching her, and she knows that look on his face because god only knows she's worn it around _him_ a few times; when he's come back out of that dark. Knows that it's the kind of quiet relief you try not to show outright, because where does it showing it get you anyway?

"Still here. Same as you."

 _Not for want of trying_ , she thinks, and it hits her, slower than it should, that it's the fact of her being there at all that's important to him; not all the things she may or may not have done to influence that. She thinks maybe she's spent too long around Matt these last few weeks; stoking her justifications like they're all that's keeping her warm.

She looks out over the lake, and the shadows chasing deeper as the sun sinks; shivers again. She thinks maybe she's sitting on a porch halfway up a mountain, drinking cold beer, surrounded by two feet of snow, and maybe she shouldn't have left her jacket in the car; shucked off somewhere in the backseat a hundred miles ago when the heating kicked up too high. That the sensible thing would be to get up and fetch it, but instead she drinks the beer; lets the cold settle in and tries to put the pieces together.

"David never _said_ , exactly, what this was about, did he? Just that he'd heard something, and it was bad enough he was taking the kids out of school for a while? And then-- this... whole thing, up here."

He's not looking at her. "That's about it."

"I don't _know_ , I mean -but when you start looking, untangling how deep it all went- I think maybe he just saw it coming that far out; saw a pattern with an outcome that spooked him that badly.

And Fisk-- he always goes after the most vulnerable things first. He's a zealot like that; it's all for the cause so it's always justified. He could have made the connection. God knows, they just kept digging, and digging-- I think David, he would have been too useful a prize to pass up, and what wouldn't he have done, to keep his kids safe? What wouldn't you have done...?"

Her voice trails off. David Lieberman's solution to everything was to disappear; it's just, this time he took his family with him; stranded Frank halfway up a mountain for safekeeping. It was exactly the kind of over-reaction she expected from him; and it very nearly wasn't remotely enough.

She clears her throat. "So he cleared the board. Took you both out of play."

When she looks, Frank's frowning now, "And what, just leaving you to the wolves?"

She swallows down everything else she wants to say, because this part is just about the war. This war.

"You're looking at it all wrong, Frank. It wasn't your fight. And it was never not gonna be ours."

**Author's Note:**

> I so, so wanted this to be a one-shot and be posted before TPs2 dropped, but the fates were conspiring, so here's the first part at least.
> 
> The title is from Passerines, by Jeffrey Foucault (it's a fancy name for a type of bird, dammit)  
> I have had that Yuknovitch quote sitting there for a year to use for Karen, in something, and then DDs3 happened (thanks, I hate it) and there it was in all its angsty glory.


End file.
